"I would suspect that you want to win games of footy, no matter when you play them," he said.

"The guys at Hawthorn will be no different to us. They'll want to go out and win the game and I'm sure the guys at Sydney, who have put such a good win-loss together after a slow start, they'll want to maintain that.

"The last round of 2011, the foot was taken off the pedal a little bit and we never really recovered from that.

"There's a fair bit to lose if you don't play with that competitive instinct, and I fully expect Hawthorn to come with it."

The Magpies lost the 2011 grand final by 38 points, floundering in the final term as the Cats kicked five unanswered goals.

Collingwood are still a chance to play their part in this season's finals but their involvement depends on a win over the Hawks and other results.

While Buckley has 14 players ruled out to injury for the rest of the season, he maintains Collingwood can make it to September.

"We set an aim of playing finals at the end of the year and we've got the opportunity to do it," he said.

"We're still 100 per cent focused on that endeavour.

"We've got injuries as do a lot of other sides.

"But we've come off a strong second-half performance last week under duress.

"We take a fair bit of belief with that and need to bring that for four quarters against Hawthorn to be competitive."